Back home again...ahhh!

We have been back (for almost a week) from our trip home for Thanksgiving. The whole family drove to Glen Ellyn on Saturday (11/22) -- even though Frank turned right around that night and flew back to Omaha... I guess that's a price we had to pay for going to Hawaii in October - no more vacation days for Frank! So, while Frank was back here working and tiling the upstairs bathrooms (no joke! that guy is motivated... and the tile looks amazing, by the way -- a big upgrade from the linoleum that was there, for sure!), the kids and I were "playing" in Illinois. The time in Glen Ellyn consisted of a lot of cousin time, a lot of Grandma and Papa time, a shopping trip with just me and Meredith (super fun!) and even a trip to the newly opened Too Toots restaurant in town -- a whole train themed restaurant. Nathan was in train heaven - the most well behaved he's ever been in a restaurant since Cheeseburger in Paradise. There was no live music, but trains might be even better when you're a 2 year old boy!

We also got to spend a couple of nights at the Hilts house - two nights of fun "sleeovers" for the cousins - complete with videos and popcorn - who could ask for more? We also had the annual "cousin" photo taken - they all did great - smiles all around (and from 4 kids...that's no small feat!). We did the traditional "double" thanksgiving on Thursday -- noon meal with the Dykstras in Michigan and afternoon meal with the Williams' in Cary. (This was the official "switch-over" point in the week - packed our bags and stayed in Cary for the rest of the weekend...)

The time in Cary also was very realxing - lots of visiting, lots of eating and even more shopping. Frank and I even had a date while we were there (awesome!) and we spent the evening eating (of course...Houlihan's - a sentimental favorite of ours...) and yes, more shopping. It was after this evening that Frank looked at the back of the car and decided we had better not make any more purchases in illinois or we would never be able to haul it all back to nebraska -- needless to say, we made a good dent in the holiday shopping, which is a good feeling!

It was great to be "home" for longer than just a weekend.... (Our families might say otherwise!) I am already looking forward to Christmas time -- we'll do it all again, and Frank can be there the whole week! Well, hopefully without driving through the hours of snow in both directions to and from Chicago -- seriously - I-80 in the snow is no fun at all!

I am always most homesick right after we get home...good thing there's this whole Christmas thing to keep me busy for the next few weeks -- we don't even have our decorations up yet - we are slacking! We are using the excuse that we came home to Ellie coming down with strep throat and the rest of us just feeling generally crappy -- we'll get the tree up this weekend, hopefully!

I can't believe it's been so long...

Has it reall been 10 days since the last post?? DOes that mean that Omaha is that uneventful...or could it be that we are getting busier here?? Either way - here's what we've been up to lately...

Last weekend, Ellie went to a birthday party for Maia, the little girl that lives behind us. I call Ellie and Maia the "2 best friends that never spend any time together..." They both act as if they are long lost buddies whenever they see each other (which has been like twice, for a grand total of 20 minutes...) Anyways, the party was at "My Gym" -- Ellie loved it -- two hours of organized running around and playing on equipment. Not a lot of party "hoop-la" either -- they paused at one point to eat a cupcake, but otherwise -- it was constant motion. At the end of the day, I don't know if Ellie really had fun at the "party" or just the "gym" - but either way, it was a success! She was so excited to tell us all about it... and then it happened...she crashed... absolutely broke down...sobbing...inconsolable. Frank was being especially patient (I didn't get it at all -- what the hell? She just got back from a party...what is she so upset about??). Frank explained that she inherited this genetic malfunction from him...in fact, when he was a kid, he also came home from almost every birthday party and completely melted down... Are you serious?" This is going to happen after every party?? Aw, geez... It was bizarre, but at least Frank knows where she's coming from!

Ellie is still loving preschool. We are doing some "friend work" there...yes, Ellie is by far our best social connection to Omaha, so far! There is a little girl in her class (also 4 years old) who has a little brother (also 2 1/2 years old) and they also have one more on the way (due one month after me) -- perfect, right? So, a couple of weeks ago, Ellie came home with a note explaining that someone in her class had a mom who was put on bed rest due to pregnancy complications (guess who?) and she needed help carpooling to and from school -- I was all over it -- ME! ME! Pick me! (Totally not my usual self... sad, right? I wouldn't normally be the first to volunteer to help out a stranger...it's a character flaw, I'm working on it!) Long story short, we've been acting as "chauffeur" for the last week -- Ellie gets a big kick out of it -- this girl is extremely shy and quiet and so it's pretty much the "ellie and nathan show" the whole way to and from school, but whatever... We'll have to call them and see if we're still "on duty" after we get back from chicago after thanksgiving... or if we've been replaced by other friends... :)

Well, I'm going to keep packing! Looking forward to our big trip to the "big city!"
More when we get home -

A few things we've discovered...

I haven't posted in a while and it's probably because we haven't been up to much...tourist-wise, anyways. We have ventured out a couple of times and discovered a few small things about Omaha...

1.) Sizzler! We finally made it out to Sizzler. Even though I was completely excited to try it again, I must say - it was better than I thought it would be. The salad bar was good, as long as you pretty much stuck to the salad -- they had a lot of other stuff (wings, taco bar,...) that didnt' look too good. Frank actually ordered a steak with his salad bar (for the price of only $2.00 extra) - he sadi it wasn't bad! And the kids were happy to see "cheese pizza" on the kids menu. A curiosity satisfied. I don't think we'll be rushing back every weekend or anything, but it was worth the trip.

2.) Pudgy's Pizzeria! We found it. We found a good pizza. Apparently this guy moved to Omaha in the early 70s from chicago and decided that this town needed a good pizza (so this pizza issue has been a long standing problem here!) Frank and Ellie stopped to pick up a pizza from Pudgy's on their way home from their "date" on Saturday (the went to see Madagascar 2). It was raining and freezing outside, and by the time the pizza got to our table, it was relatively cold-ish...and it was STILL the best pizza we've had to date here. Frank said it was a very "auggie's" atmosphere -- Pudgy himself was at the front counter, not really working, but he knew everyone that came in -- there were tons of people racing around behind the counter -- the most organized chaos that ever was! I can't wait to try it maybe at the restaurant... when it's hot and fresh out of the oven... nonetheless, I think we're on to something here!

3.) Conditioner. this one has nothing to do with omaha, but what the heck took me so long to get some conditioner in ellie's hair? Brushing her hair after a bath was like torture for everyone involved. Quick fix - conditioner - DUH! Smooth sailing every since, and we've shaved a good 5 minutes off the whole bath time routine...priceless!

Those are the discoveries of recent weeks... we're starting to run out of touristy things to do here, so we are turning our focus to restaurants - next up: Fazoli's -- haven't eaten at one of those since our Purdue days. It was "nice" fast food dinner back then - I wonder what we'll think of it now -- that's on the schedule for next weekend - full report to follow.

Have a great week - stay warm!

Halloween 2008

Our first Halloween in Omaha was festivity-full :) Here's how the week went down...

Wednesday, October 29th: Ellie's Halloween program / party at preschool:

After missing a few days while we were in Hawaii, Ellie's first day back to preschool was the Halloween party (good thing, too -- she was SO excited -- I think it helped tear her away from that swimming pool in Maui)! So, as we were all a little jetlagged from our trip, I had to wake Ellie up around 8:00 that morning so that we could get in costume and get to school on time. She was thrilled to put on that Ariel get-up (even the wig) and was even more excited that Frank and I would be coming for the program. Again, I gotta say, that's one good thing about Omaha - Frank works close enough to skip out for an hour to watch Ellie and her class sing their 6 halloween songs and make a mysterious "witch's brew" -- it was cute, and she was so happy to have us there watching her "hang out" with her friends. Very fun!

Thursday, October 30th: Carving pumpkins

We went to target and bought (probably) four of the last carvable pumpkins in Omaha (and a little one "for the baby," ellie insisted...). Usually, pumpkin carving starts off with a bang, but before the first one is completely gutted, the kids are off doing something else, and Frank and I are left to do all the "fun" by ourselves... This year, they both showed much more stamina! Ellie loved scooping the guts out of the pumpkins and was heavily involved in the "design" phase of the pumpkins -- instructing Frank on how exactly she wanted each face to look. It was fun - but I might advocate pumpkins only for the kids in future years, especially with three kids -- I mean, carving 5 pumpkins is a little excessive!

Friday, October 31st: the BIG day... Halloween!

Not a big hyped up day - the preschool party was done, we had a lazy afternoon...just waiting around to trick-or-treat, basically. We had heard that the hours here were 6 pm - 9 pm. OK, weird for us (I think in Elk Grove, we had many trick-or-treaters by 4:00, but whatever...) We ate dinner, waited around, and around 6:00, the kids were in their costumes and we were out on the driveway doing the "photo shoot." Still no action on the street...pretty quiet... At about 6:15, we couldn't hold them back any longer, so we headed out. Last year at this time, Nathan was not a great walker yet (can you believe it??), so this year was much better in terms of mobility! We headed down one side of our street and back up the other side -- about 20 houses in all --just about perfect - nathan was pretty tired - Ellie and Frank did a few more houses, but even they were home by about 7:30. So, halloween traditions are a little different around here. We were the only family out by ourselves. Apparently the tradition here is that the women all gather at one house and have some kind of cocktail party and answer the door for the trick-or-treaters. Meanwhile, the dads take the kids out, while pulling a wagon of beer (no kidding) and loosely supervise big herds of their own children begging for candy... it was strange. Big groups of men, drinking, and big groups of kids running from house to house... and there were TONS of kids... I had bought 3 big bags of candy (about 220 pieces all together) - we started handing out 2 to each kid, but by about 7:45, we had to cut back to one per customer... Frank couldn't do it. He didn't think it was right to give a kid one little mini package of starburst. I couldn't let him near the candy bowl -- I had to answer every bell. No sham in my game. I also took all the "lame" candy out of Nathan's bag and handed it out, too (goobers,... I mean, the kid can't eat peanuts yet anyways...) We shut it down at exactly 9:00 pm with no extra candy -- had we left out lights on any longer, we would have had to resort to handing out pennies or fruit snacks (just got a new big box from costco)... but we don't want to be THOSE people... not when there were three "full size candy bar" houses on our street alone... we don't want to get a bad reputation our first year here!

All in all, it was a fun week, albeit a little lonely on Friday. We usually host a little trick-or-treating party for the grandparents at our house on Halloween. We still bought pumkin napkins and we still made chili (and of course, it was nearly 70 degrees!), and the kids were asking if anyone was coming over. (I think it's a good thing that they still don't really get it that we live so far away from everyone!) Hopefully, we got enough good pictures to capture every moment!

Ahhh...Maui!

Well, Maui fails to disappoint again! This was our first trip to the islands in October and it was hard for me to believe that the weather would be as warm and sunny and consistent as it is in the summer months...but, it was beautiful (and noticeably less crowded!). Highs in the upper 80s every day - the evenings were cool and pleasant - lows around 70 -- it was great! Windy at times, which didn't always make me want to jump in the pool or the ocean, but... the kids were completely unaffected. Ellie would swim day or night, sunny or cloudy, even the morning it rained for a few minutes -- she wanted to be swimming 24-7! Frank was a good sport - he always jumped right in with them. (Ellie did tell me that "daddy was way more fun than mommy at swimming." Fair enough :)

We visited our favorite restaurants -- Cheeseburger in Paradise (Nathan's new favorite, too -- they have live music -- he was hooked -- best behavior from him at a restaurant ever!), Longhi's (Frank and I got to go alone...left Grandma and Grandpa in the pool with the kids...), Leilani's on the Beach (they got rid of my chicken teriyaki sandwich, but it was still good), and of course, Pizza Paradiso (ok, we did this one more than once!)

We tried some new places, too. We went to Kimo's (great location / view...food OK, too!), back to Longhi's for breakfast (always wanted to try it in the a.m. -- we were not disappointed), and the Cool Cat Cafe (yum - burgers!). Overall, we ate like kings (as the scale would indicate... I gained some weight last week in Maui, and a couple more pounds than can be accounted for by "baby"...) Home again, and time to be "good" and get back on track - bummer!

We also did a couple of "kid-friendly" touristy things while we were there -- a couple of boat tours. The first one was called the Reefdancer -- it was a semi-submarine -- the bottom half of the boat was under water - that's where we sat - there were big glass windows to look out. The boat sailed out to the reef and we enjoyed the reef-life. They also had divers go down to the ocean floor and bring up things we might not notice on our own -- urchins, octopus, etc. That was cool -- Ellie got a big kick out of it - especially the octopus! The diver stuck it right to her window and spread out all of its arms -- she was impressed... It was a nice alternative to snorkeling... all the views, without any of the actual snorkeling (which our kids could definitely not have done...) The other boat tour that we did was a "Dolphin Adventure" put on by the Pacific Whale Foundation -- it was a longer tour (about 3 hours) and it was very cool! We sailed out off the coast of Lana'i -- and once we found where dolphins were hanging out that day, the boat was surrounded by them. It was amazing (and hard to capture on film)! They were so fast - they were racing the boat, jumping into the air (yeah, like at the zoo shows). Ellie thought the trip was all worth while because she saw a baby dolphin swimming with its mommy and daddy. It was very cool to see this dolphin family swimming along together -- she called it "even amazing-er" than the octopus!

Besides the two boat tours, we spent most of the week, souvenir shopping, swimming (at least once, if not twice a day!), playing in the sand, and of course, eating! The week went by so quickly -- the kids were great (busy all the time - always ready to nap / sleep). Even the traveling was smooth -- Nathan had his "tunes" and Ellie was happy to watch DVD's and do dot-to dots. The 8 hour flight over was almost enjoyable! (OK, so after the overnight flight back to O'Hare -- nathan didn't sleep hardly at all -- we would have rather not had to wait 2 hours to get on another plane back to Omaha, but you gotta do what you gotta do...Nathan was asking for "no more air-panes")

We are still recovering from our jet-lag. The kids are a bit thrown off still. (the first morning we were home, ellie was surprised that when she woke up..."the sun was already up!") It has been a while since that has happened! We're getting there, though. The jet lag is all completely worth it -- we always leave Maui wondering when we will return, but it's never long before we find our way back.

A day of TOO much fun??

We were home the first weekend of October, and next weekend Frank is working "inventory" at the plant on Saturday and then we are off to Hawaii on Saturday night, so... that leaves us with THIS weekend to explore all that Omaha has to offer in terms of Halloween fun. Here is the fun-filled adventure for today --

Saturday morning: Vala's Pumpkin Patch; Gretna, NE

OK, we had heard that this was a "must see" -- people described it to us as "very commercialized" but "well run" and "constantly being improved," so of course, we decided to give it a go. Pricey, by Omaha standards (about $12 per person - kids and adults...Nathan was still free - whew!), but once you get in the doors, most stuff is included with the admission and the place is HUGE. We were there for almost three hours and judging by the map, I think we saw about a half to 2/3 of the whole place. Very cute stuff -- lots of familiar favorites from home -- the "How tall this fall?," lots of animals to feed by hand, lots of photo-ops where the kids could put their faces in the "holes." There were also a lot of free "shows" -- the pig-tucky derby races (groups of pigs running around in a circle), the pumpkin canon shooter thing (even cooler than it sounds), lots of robotic sort of entertainment (not dissimilar to the country bear jamboree at disney world only more halloween themed - skeletons and stuff like that) -- the kids loved these shows - music for nathan and ellie was just singing along and clapping at the end of each song. There were haystack rides and corn mazes and lots of cutesy little fall displays (storybook village, pirate themed "playgrounds") to walk around. After a few hours, we had had enough (mostly Nathan, who kept asking for "mommy's car car? go home?") On the way out we each chose our treat for later: Ellie and Nathan chose cotton candy (surprise, surprise after the cotton candy meltdown at Sonny Acres last weekend... and incidentally, Nathan chose a roll of smarties after lunch instead of the cotton candy...), Frank chose handmade fudge (very yummy - reminded me of Mackinaw Island Fudge) and I went with (shocker) the homemade cheese popcorn (also very yummy - reminded me of Garrett's popcorn in chicago -- it was a very samll bag, but it's just about gone already -- no shame in my cheese-corn game!)

Saturday afternoon: Children's Museum Halloween Exhibit -- Cobweb Castle

Since we have a membership to the Omaha Children't museum (and I think we've been enough times already to more than pay for itself...the kids love it there!), we decided we could jet "all the way downtown" for an hour or so to see their Halloween exhibit: the Cobweb Castle. The museum closes at 5:00, and we got there around 3:30 -- it was more than enough time. On another fortunate note, there was a Nebraska football game in progress, so we literally had the place to ourselves...worked out pretty well. The cobweb castle itself was more or less just a (dark) room with mazes, "stick your hand in the hole and pull out something creepy," and lots of tunnels and black lights and all sorts of "scary" things for little kids. It was cute, but we were literally in that part of the museum for about 10 - 15 minutes. But, the kids didn't waste any time making their way to their long standing favorites... the dinosaurs, the "ball room" (they call it the science center, I think), the giant piano, the craft room. Still, all in all, we were there for a little over an hour and we (frank and I) had had plenty of children's museum fun. And, of course, we were glad to satisfy the curiosity of the cobweb castle before we ran out of weekends before Halloween!

Saturday evening: Dinner at the Old Market

Since we were already "all the way downtown," and we were done at the museum by 5:00, we decided that it might be a good night for a family night out on the town, so we went to eat at a pizza place (I know, risky in Omaha) called Old Chicago. It's a chain down here (they must have them somewhere else, but who knows) and we figured with a name like Old CHICAGO, it must be good. And you know what? It really was one of the best pizzas we've had here -- pleasantly surprised by an Omaha pizza for once. We have a couple of leads on some other places, too (from the girl that cut my hair - consider the source) so our search will continue for the best pizza in town, but so far - Old Chicago has the lead.

We piled all the fun stuff onto today - tomorrow, it's supposed to rain here, so we will likely spend the day doing errands and oh, yes... frank continues to paint the trim upstairs -- only two rooms left!

The week of birthdays...

I haven't posted in a while, so here is the week of birthday celebrations in review...

Monday, September 29th (Frank's birthday):
Ellie had the day off of preschool, so we spent the day doing "birthday chores" -- we baked and decorated cupcakes, we wrapped gifts, signed and decorated cards, we dug through the "party cupboard" and found enough stuff to decorate the house - a few streamers, some confetti. The kids were really into it -- it was like a whole theme day -- it was great to have something different to break up our day. We also met Frank for lunch at jason's deli (yum!) and went out for dinner. Yes, basically, we ate our way throught the day. It was Frank's birthday, but apparently that means I don't cook -- works for me!

Thursday, October 2nd (My birthday):
I was geared up for a quiet day ending with dinner at Sizzler... you see, I haven't seen a Sizzler since the '80s and I just remember them having (although not the greatest meat...) THE greatest salad bar. So, Frank agreed (reluctantly, probably) and that was the plan. As the day progressed, I was really starting to second guess my pick -- I mean, should I really "waste" a dinner out on the Sizzler?? Why not, right? So, anyways, I had a few things to do before we set off for Chicago for the weekend while the kids were sleeping and I told myself that since it was my birthday -- if I got all of those things done, I would just sit and read a book until they got up. Well, while I was sitting, doing nothing but reading, the doorbell rings -- I was shocked to see my dad standing at the front door. After all, it was my birthday, and we "always" go out to dinner for my birthday.... I guess I just didn't expect the tradition to continue when we live 400 miles apart and we were planning to be in chicago the very next day. He surprised me for sure! We actually didn't end up at the Sizzler -- we went to a place called Firebirds (which I guess is a chain, but we didn't have them in Chicago) -- it was very yummy (at least I thought so -- I don't get out much!) It was a perfect birthday, full of surprises! My dad spent the night here, and rode to Chicago with us the next day....

October 3rd - 5th: The trip to chicago
My dad was a good sport, taking 2 turns in the backseat between the kids...he claims it was not that bad, but we all had our turns back there...it was pretty tight. Although, it was nice to have an extra adult in the backseat at all times to "fetch" for the kids. We made pretty good time (about 8 hours) and by the time we got to Glen Ellyn, the kids were just about tripping over their feet to get in the house to see grandma - very cute! They both quickly ran around, making sure all of their favorite toys were still in the same places and just generally checking the place out to make sure that it hadn't changed since we left. (Ellie was proud to announce that she remembered grandma's house - both the inside and the outside... I would hope so - we've only been gone a few months!) Shortly after we got there, Meredith and Kathryn and Lindsey arrived - holy cousin fun! The four kids disappeared upstairs and played for a long time, pulling either grandma or grandpa into their fun periodically. So fun to hear all of the laughs and "screams of joy" again... When Marc arrived after work, we ordered pizza.... mmmm... Chicago Pizza (of which I ate my weight). I hardly said a word during dinner - just enjoyed the taste! All four of the kids had a "sleepover" in one room (I don't think anyone slept until at least 10:00, but...) On Saturday morning, we headed out to Sonny Acres (the pumpkin patch) - ellie was so excited that we were going to be able to go "even though we moved to Omaha." It was very fun, despite the tantrum ellie threw all because we didn't get cotton candy like we did last year... ugh!
We ended the first half of our weekend at Augustino's Deli, another hometown favorite -- yum, again! how did I not gain weight this weekend??

After we left Glen Ellyn, we drove up to Cary to see Frank's parents. On our way, we drove past our old house -- Nathan recognized the old park from blocks away! I have convinced myself that our Omaha house doesn't look that much bigger than our Illinois house, but as soon as we pulled into the old neighborhood -- we were both like, "ok, these houses are smaller...and they all have (very small!) 2 car garages... and they're all so close together..." But, our old house looked pretty much the same (they have managed to control all of the dandelions that we spread for them before we left). When we got to Cary, the kids did their "check" of nana's house - found the favorite toys and made themselves at home. We walked up to the park to burn off some more energy (which must have worked -- Nathan slept for 14 hours that night...that's not a typo...that's a Nathan record!) On Sunday, all of Frank's siblings came over - so great to see everyone again! Ellie was nearly obsessed with baby oliver, and nathan didn't really even want to acknowledge that there was a new kid in town... hmmm... flash forward to march? I'll bet neither one is as extreme when the new kid in town lives at our house. We wish we could have stayed longer, but the long trek down route 80 was calling... we left around 2:00, and (despite running into THE slowest fast food dinner stop in Des Moines) and got to our house around 10:00 -- again, not bad time, but the kids were zonked - and so were we.

One benefit of me not having to be at work today was that we pretty much left the car as is and came inside and crashed. I spent today (literally the entire day) unpacking the car, doing laundry, putting stuff away. It was a great weekend - I am always most homesick right after we go home. Looking forward to going home again at thanksgiving, when we'll have more time to spend with everyone!

Whew! Thanks for reading all about the birthday week -- it was awesome!
More soon!